07.20.12

Sincere apologies to Ron House for the above headline. AHEM. Ron Santo, Barry Larkin and Tim McCarver will be inducted in the Baseball Hall Of Fame this weekend, an occasion that inspired Rolling Stone’s Dan Epstein — author of “Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s” to poll a number of leading lights from the music world with the question, “name one player who should be in the Hall of Fame that isn’t.” While Epstein must’ve misplaced phone numbers for Chuck D., Pete Nice, Barbara Manning or Ira Kaplan, he did manage to garner responses from the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn (Jack Morris), Steve Earle (“Thurman Fucking Munson”) and former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul (Ron Washington — seriously). Handsome Dick Manitoba picked Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, despite neither being HOF eligible at the moment, while Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard endorses Edgar Martinez (“if we are going to allow one type of specialty player in to the Hall (relief pitchers), we must afford the same consideration to players who spent the majority of their careers at DH”). The longest contribution comes from Alice Cooper :

Easy: Pete Rose. I have never understood to this day why Pete Rose is not in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose was probably the best baseball player of his era. And yet he’s not in the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. If he was betting AGAINST his team, I could see a foul… But he was betting ON his team, and that showed confidence in his team. He was not fixing the games. Pete Rose is not in the Baseball Of Fame because of his personal life. Now, I’m a huge fan of Ty Cobb because he was a Detroit Tiger and he was arguably the best hitter of all time… But in his personal life he was a first class bastard. And yet he is in the Hall of Fame because of what he did on the field, not off the field. Pete Rose got the rawest deal of anyone. And he’s the most deserving to be in the Hall of Fame, in my opinion.